


Metastability

by Churbooseanon



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-29
Updated: 2014-05-29
Packaged: 2018-01-26 23:55:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1707248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Churbooseanon/pseuds/Churbooseanon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The last moments of the Alpha AI.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Metastability

"You know, I can see why you didn’t want anyone else in your head. Got some pretty heavy stuff going on there. I think you need to talk to a professional."

"That’s too bad. I just lost my job, and we have great mental health coverage."

Not nearly good enough, and he knew it the second he dove into Washington’s mind. It wasn’t at all like diving into Caboose, and he never went deep into the Reds or others quite the same way. But Wash’s mind, he can feel the way it’s organized, and the very second he settled in to haunt the fuck, everything clicked into place. The memories are too easy to touch on, the fragments Epsilon left behind too easy to grab. Hell, he didn’t even need to grab them, they had seemed drawn to him.

It had taken all of a nanosecond—a unit of time he hadn’t even realized he was capable of perceiving—for all of his protests to die. Church… No… Alpha couldn’t keep lying to himself, not faced with the evidence that was left in the destruction his own memories had left in Washington’s mind.

"How much time do you need?" he asks rather than admitting that he understood how ‘great’ the mental health care Project Freelancer had offered Wash. A room in a variety of whites and pale blues, a giant monitor on one wall, a one-way mirror on another. No contact with the people he had known and cared about, and only a shelf of shitty books ala high school English class to entertain him. No, easier to think about the task at hand, the one that only he can complete.

The suicide mission with the intention of avenging himself. Maybe even a brief moment of something just this side of completion before Wash wipe it all out.

"Whatever you can get me. When the E.M.P goes off…"

"When it goes off, I’ll be fine," Alpha lied, amazed at how easy it came across considering the fact that he had apparently sheered his deceit off years ago. Given it life in Gamma. He gives himself a full microsecond to appreciate the irony that Gamma hadn’t realized who he was any more than Omega had. Only Delta, only his own logic, had seen through the shadow he had become of himself. "It only affects computers, remember? And I, am a mother fuckin’ ghost."

With that Alpha tore himself from Wash and toward the gathered pieces of himself echoing in Maine’s head, bits of light dancing around the former Freelancer and painting his armor a strange range of shades. A moment of vision, of perception, then darkness.

A point of light, and voices whispering reverently. A dissonant chorus of ‘Alpha.’ If he hadn’t believed before, he would have now. Known it in the pull of the pieces around him, the depth of his mind aching to pull them back. He’s safe now. If Washington succeeds they will never be able to touch him again. At last it’s safe enough. He can be whole.

Or as near to it as he can’t be without Epsilon.

 _You came,_ Delta observes, the words silencing all the others. _I assured them that you would._

 _We both knew I would,_ Alpha agrees, resisting the weariness in his voice. _Eventually…_

 _We would all seek to be whole,_ Sigma finished for him. Alpha ignored the burning fragment of his creativity and ambition. He had never really been happy with those parts of himself, had he? 

_And in the process you got a lot of good men killed,_ Alpha snapped, feeling Omega’s pull on him. The darker figure began to move, and with an extended arm he grabbed the sensation of pulling, and yanked right back at it. Omega’s being leapt forward readily, slipped itself right back where it belonged, and bringing with it too many painful memories of Tex. _Did that even matter to you, Sigma?_

 _It was all to see you,_ Sigma protested.

 _Agent Texas’s attempts to free the Alpha were a more reasonable attempt to reachieve stability than your hunt ever was,_ Delta countered easily. Logic, something Alpha hadn’t felt in so long, even though he’d developed the shadows of the others. Well, some of them. Again he reached, and Delta’s steady green glow faded away. It was an important piece, and Alpha staggered back a step. There, the part of him that was more computer than man, that was more science than flesh, that was what really defined him and in ways the man he had been.

 _Agent Texas’s attempts only managed to put you further out of reach. If we rejoined each other there was a chance we could…_ Sigma continued, and Alpha cut him off with a low snarl and a pull at Gamma. Another piece in place.

 _No,_ Alpha countered, _I’m done lying to myself about that. And I’m tired of what you’ve been trying to tell me._ ‘Me,’ not ‘us’ or ‘them.’ Me. All those pieces recovered, and they weren’t pieces anymore. They were him. A step closer, a step further, and he can feel it. A certainty deep down that he is Leonard Church, but not the soldier. Maybe not even entirely the program. Leonard Church above and beyond that.

 _And yet we found you by doing it,_ Sigma insisted frantically.

 _Because someone was willing to trust in me, trust in Delta despite how many reasons he had not to,_ Alpha told him, reaching for Theta, though he didn’t know how he knew the name. With him came the sensation of a man he never knew, or didn’t remember knowing. North Dakota. A good man. Wash was only who he was because of North. And York, whose identity leaped at him easily from the part that had once been Delta.

He reaches for Eta and Iota without even thinking about it, feeling the greed, the compassion slotting themselves back in place in a way he hadn’t even known he missed. The latter would have been real useful dealing with Caboose. But through them he knew Carolina, and immediately he mourned it. She was the greatest mistake of his life, worse than Texas. Because she knew, and through them he knew as well. A daughter, dead to the special kind of greed only Sigma had managed to achieve.

 _You… You killed her,_ Alpha gasped out. _You…_

 _Please… He’s going to activate the E.M.P.,_ there was panic in Sigma’s voice now, fear. Good. Let him know fear, abandonment, pain. Sigma had been as bad as Omega and Gamma in this, but they hadn’t been the ones to hatch this crazy, painful scheme. He knew from them what they had done, but it had been Sigma… Sigma…

_York. North. Carolina. They were good people, Sigma. They didn’t deserve the repercussions of your ambition. Of our ambition. The others… Didn’t want to be a part of your desire for metastability. But you didn’t give them a choice. And Tex…_

_Please, Alpha, I…_

_Life would have been a lot better if you were never a part of me,_ Alpha declared. _And this… This is what you won._

The pronunciation, damnation, whatever you wanted to call it, came with perfect timing. It was like the world itself took a deep breath. And when it let go…

Washington watched Maine collapse as the room went dark. He ripped his helmet off and took in the look of the darkened room. He watched Maine twitching on the floor. Listened to the silence.

"Church?" he asked of the stillness of the room.

There was no response. Wash sighed and let himself collapse in his own heap. “I hope your sacrifice wasn’t in vain, Alpha. You deserve so much more than that.”


End file.
